This invention relates to a switchboard assembly having an improved arrangement of power supply side buses and associated contact members making electrical contact with the respective power supply side buses in a housing.
A power receiving/substation equipment is commonly used so as to supply power to a load, for example, an electrical equipment in a building, a sewerage system or a railway system. A switchboard is usually used as one of the major components of the power receiving/substation equipment so as to control electric power supplied from a power source to such a load. Depending on the required function of the load, as many as several to several hundred switchboards are juxtaposed in parallel. When the switchboards amounting to a total number of several hundreds are arranged in parallel (line-up of switchgear), they occupy a considerably large area especially in the widthwise direction.
Therefore, it is a common practice to stack switchboards over multiple stages so as to reduce the area occupied in the widthwise direction of the stack.
Also, JP-A-58-175902 discloses a technique for reducing the area occupied by a switchboard. According to the disclosure of the cited application, a partition wall is provided in the housing of the switchboard so that a circuit breaker compartment is formed on one side, while a conductor compartment extending in the depthwise direction is formed on the other side. Power supply side and load side three-phase disconnecting parts communicating with these breaker and conductor compartments are disposed in three phases above and beneath the partition wall. A pair of power supply side disconnecting parts disposed opposite to each other through a partition plate partitioning each breaker compartment are connected by electrical conductors on the side of the conductor compartment. Three-phase power supply buses are connected to these electrical conductors.
Thus, because the power supply side disconnecting parts and the electrical conductors in the conductor compartment extend in the depthwise direction, not only the power supply side disconnecting parts and the electrical conductors become inevitably long, but also their dimensions in the depthwise direction inevitably increase. Therefore, the prior art switchboard has been defective in that the desired reduction of the size cannot be attained, and the requirement for establishing many electrical connections between the power supply side disconnecting parts, the electrical conductors, the power supply buses, etc. leads inevitably to the difficulty of the connection work.